With campuses shuttered in the pandemic, society needs to find solutions quickly to continue education and avoid a lost generation of skilled workers.

Institutions have scrambled to initiate remote learning, but the transition was always unlikely to be smooth in the middle of a global health crisis.

Traditional colleges are running virtual classes on unprecedented scale – in April, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that University of Sydney was holding 1,000 Zoom conference calls each day, some with more than 100 students.

But grasping remote learning will be crucial if higher education is to limit heavy financial losses. Revenues at US universities are…